"Don't move."
He stopped dead still, then slowly, very slowly turned toward the second voice. Another figure was standing in front of a pillar, to his right. He was so amazed that a mist passed over his eyes. Confused memories were drifting up to the surface of his mind. He knew this woman.
"Mathilde?"
Without answering, she approached.
He said again, in a dazed tone, "Mathilde Wilcrau?"
She stood in front of him, pointing the automatic pistol that was in her gloved hand at him.
Looking from one of them to the other, he stammered, "You… you know each other?"
"When you no longer trust your neurologist, where do you go? To a psychiatrist."
As before, she lengthened her syllables into deep undulations. Nobody could forget such a voice. A flood of saliva filled his mouth, a sludge that tasted just like the stench in the corridor. He knew what it was now: the bitter, profound, malevolent taste of fear. He was its sole source. It was exuding from every pore of his body. “Have you been following me? What do you want?"
Anna went over to him. Her indigo eyes glittered in the greenish light of the garage. Eyes like a dark ocean, slightly slanted, almost Asian. She smiled and said, "What do you think I want?"
40
In the field of the neurosciences, in neuropsychology and cognitive psychology I'm the best, or at least one of the best, in the entire world. This isn't vanity. It's quite simply a recognized fact in the scientific community. At the age of fifty-two, I have become what is called a reference.
But I really became important in these fields only when I deserted the scientific world, when I left the beaten track and took a forbidden path. A path that no one had taken before me. It was only then that I became a major researcher, a pioneer who will mark his epoch.
The trouble is, it's already too late for me…
MARCH 1994
After sixteen months of tomographic experiments on the memory-the third season of the Personal Memory and Cultural Memory program the repetition of certain anomalies led me to contact those laboratories that were using the same radio-labeled water in the experiments as my team: Oxygen-15.
The answer was unanimous. They hadn't noticed a thing.
This didn't mean I was wrong. It just meant that I was using higher doses on the subjects of my experiments and that my unusual results could be explained by this fact. I sensed something important had happened. I had crossed a threshold, and this threshold revealed the true power of this substance.
It was too early to publish. I just wrote a report for the Atomic Energy Commission, which was funding my work, summarizing that season's results. On the last page, 1 appended a note mentioning the repetition of certain unusual events during the tests. These events concerned the indirect influence of oxygen-IS on the human brain, and they undoubtedly ought to be studied during a specific research program.
Their reaction was instantaneous. I was called in to AEC headquarters in May. In a huge conference hall, a dozen specialists were waiting for me. With their short-cropped hair and rigid turn of phrase, I recognized them at once. They were the same soldiers who had interviewed me two years before, when I'd made my initial presentation of my research.
I started at the beginning: "The principle of PET (positron emission tomography) involves injecting radio-labeled water into the subject's blood. Once made radioactive itself, it emits positrons, which a camera then captures in real time, thus allowing cerebral activity to be localized. Personally, I selected a classic radioactive isotope, Oxygen-15, and-"
A voice interrupted me: "In your note, you mention some anomalies. What do you mean exactly? What happened?"
"I noticed that after the tests, some subjects confused their own memories with the stories they had been told during the sessions."
"Can you be more precise?"
"Several exercises in my protocol consisted of communicating imaginary stories, short fictions that the subject then had to summarize orally. After the tests, the subjects repeated these stories as if they were true. They were absolutely convinced that they had really experienced these inventions."
"And you think it was the use of Oxygen-15 that sparked this phenomenon?"
"I suppose so. A positron camera cannot have any effect on the consciousness. It's a noninvasive technique. Oxygen-15 was the only product administered to the subjects."
"How do you explain its influence?"
"I can't. Maybe it's the impact of radioactivity on the neurons. Or an effect of the molecule itself on the neurotransmitters. It's as if the experiment excites the cognitive system, thus making it permeable to information given during the test. The brain can no longer tell the difference between imaginary data and personal experiences."
"Do you think that using this substance, it might be possible to implant in a subject's consciousness memories that are… shall we say, artificial?"
"It's far more complex than that. I -"
"Do you think it's possible? Yes or no?"
"We could certainly explore this possibility"
Silence. Then another voice said, "During your career, you've worked on brainwashing techniques, haven't you?"
I burst out laughing in a vain attempt to defuse this inquisitorial atmosphere. "Over twenty years ago. In my Ph.D. thesis!"
"Have you followed the progress that has been made in the field?”
“More or less. But there's a lot of unpublished research on the subject. Work that has been classified top secret. I don't know if-"
"Can substances be used to act as an effective chemical screen to block out a subject's memory?"
"Yes, there are several such products."
"Which ones?"
"We're talking here about manipulations that are-"
"Which ones?"
I answered grudgingly, "There's much talk these days about substances like GHB or gamma-hydroxybutyrate. But to achieve this kind of objective, it's better to use a more common product. Like Valium, for instance."
"Why?"
"Because at certain doses, Valium not only provokes partial amnesia, it also introduces automatisms. Patients become open to suggestion. What is more, we also have an antidote, so subjects can recover their memory afterward."
Silence.
The first voice: "Supposing that a subject had been given such a treatment. Would it be possible to inject new memories, using Oxygen-15?”
“If you're expecting me to-"
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
Another silence. All eyes were fixed on me.
"The subject would remember nothing?"
"No."
"Neither the Valium treatment nor the use of Oxygen-15?"
"No, but it's too early to-"
"Apart from you, who else knows about this?"
"Nobody. I contacted some other laboratories that use the isotope, but no one had noticed anything and-"
"We know who you've contacted."
"You're spying on me?"
"Did you speak about it to the heads of the laboratories?"
"No, it was via e-mail. I-"
"Thank you, Professor."
At the end of 1994, a new budget was voted through for a program entirely devoted to the effects of Oxygen-15. Such are the ironies of fate. After encountering so many difficulties getting funding for a program that I had planned, presented and defended, I was now being given financing for a project I hadn't even envisaged.
APRIL 1995
The nightmare began. I was visited by a policeman, escorted by two goons dressed in black. He was a giant with a gray mustache, dressed in woolen gabardine. He introduced himself as Commissioner Philippe Charlier. He seemed jovial, smiling and relaxed, but my old hippie instincts whispered to me that he was dangerous. I saw in him a violent breaker of rebellion, a bastard sure that what he was doing was right.
"I've come to tell you a story," he announced. "A personal memory. About a wave of terrorist attacks that spread panic throughout France from December 1985 to September 1986. The Rue de Rennes, and so on. Remember? In all, thirteen dead and two hundred and fifty wounded.